Reply to Would free Pre-K in East and North Moco improve the school system?

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Reply to "Would free Pre-K in East and North Moco improve the school system?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I work in a school in North MoCo where we have Pre-K. The majority of the students go to our Kindergarten and the data is pretty shocking. It's not good. A few come in knowing their numbers and letters but not many. Pre-K is only about 3 hours a day. The morning class eats breakfast, has a little bit of academic time, goes to specials, plays outside and then eats lunch and goes home. The afternoon class comes in, eats lunch, has a little bit of academic time, goes to specials, plays outside and packs up to go home.

Is it better than nothing? Sure, I guess. But I don't see the kids who had Pre-K coming into K with any huge advantage over the kids who didn't have Pre-K, especially since absences aren't counted in Pre-K and parents get in bad habits of arriving late and keeping their kids home whenever they feel like it and then act very surprised when those same habits have consequences the next year. [/quote]

This is exactly how it is when kids come into K at our Focus School.

It's a free program, with no consequences for not attending, so parents don't take it very seriously.  Which is fine, but it's not consistent for the kids.

Also, the quality is nowhere near the quality of a good preschool.  Parents with the means to afford a private pre-school would just pay for that, even if the free alternative was offered to all.  The ratios for the Head Start programs are usually much higher than most of the good quality preschools in this area.  [/quote]

I am the other Focus school PP. I feel like you and I respond in similar ways to a lot of education threads. Do you teach ESOL? [/quote]

This is because people like to live in bubbles. If money and a stable home life cushion you from ugly situations, why should you care?  I can't tell you how often I try to talk to my friends - and sometimes the "general public" - about the school system.  I'm a 20+ year vet at the secondary level.  My experiences have been in schools with high FARMs rates, and while FARMs numbers are telling, it's the ever-FARMs that show the real truth.

Imagine a 9th grader reading at a 5th grade level.  Sometimes half of my classes would be below level. So some of you are telling me that these are the kids who could have (transience rate aside) "benefited" from the feeder schools offering pre-K, right?

uh
no

Teaching basic reading skills is great.  However, without CONSISTENT practice and reinforcement at home, the skills don't stick.  To those of you too dense to get it, answer this:  How many successful athletes make it if they skip practice?

Our system is sick; it's highly dysfunctional - opting instead to put a band aid over a puncture wound.

I'm so tired of sounding like an echo chamber, and I'm tired of the blame game, too.  The public blames teachers. Colleges blame high schools. High schools blame middle schools.  Middle schools blame elementary schools.

enough already! The system is changing, and we don't use the right tools to reach certain kids.  Throwing money at a system isn't always the answer either.  Allowing teachers the autonomy to determine CREATIVE methods to reach kids is.  I can teach without a Promethean board and Google docs.

But as an educator, I really have no say even though I'm on the front lines.[/quote]

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